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DENIN’s Core Research Areas
monitoring critical zone climate
DENIN’s mission is to conduct research
and coordinate partnerships that integrate environmental science, engineering, and policy
in order to provide solutions and strategies that address environmental challenges.
The Institute unites a vibrant network of faculty, students, and partners in pursuit of this mission. Nearly 15 percent of all UD
faculty participate in DENIN, either
as faculty affiliates or as members of the Council of Fellows, a group of senior faculty that help guide DENIN’s research efforts.
DENIN assembles interdisciplinary
teams of affiliates and partners to
apply for large, multi-investigator research
grants. In our first five years, DENIN submitted 57 research grants, securing more than $54 million in research funding. As a direct result of these grants, some 225 papers have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The Institute has funneled almost $17 million
to our statewide higher education partners at Delaware State University, Delaware Technical Community College, and Wesley College and $8.4 million in research support to UD’s colleges.
DENIN focuses on research that is relevant to environmental and sustainability challenges facing the state of Delaware, the nation, and the world. We group these challenges into six broad, interrelated research areas that form the core of what we do.
human impacts land use water quality
The Critical Zone
The critical zone is the heterogeneous, near-surface environment in which complex interactions involving rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms regulate the natural habitat
and determine the availability of life-sustaining
resources. Important physical, chemical, and biological processes and reactions occur in
the critical zone over a range of scales, both spatial (global to atomic) and
temporal (millennia to nanoseconds).
These processes impact the mass and energy exchange necessary for
biomass production, chemical recycling, and water storage. They also control the
transport and cycling of contaminants and nutrients and have critical effects on soil, air,
and water quality. They determine the health
and sustainability of the ecosystem and its inhabitants. Our research in this area places special emphasis on the impact of biogeochemical interfaces on the reactivity, transport, and cycling of metals, nutrients, carbon, and microbes in the environment.
Geomicrobiologist Clara Chan and marine biochemist George Luther examine test tubes filled with nanoparticulate pyrite — tiny particles of the iron-based mineral produced in deep-sea hydrothermal vents that may serve as an important source
of iron for ocean life, even far away from the vents.


































































































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